List of Battleships of The Ottoman Empire - Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis

Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis

The Ottoman battleships Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis were originally named Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg, respectively. They were members of the German Brandenburg-class, the first class of ocean-going battleships built for the German navy. Two other ships of the class were constructed, Brandenburg and Wörth. Of the four, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg were more advanced in that their armor was composed of higher-quality steel.

Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg were sold to the Ottoman Navy in 1910 and renamed Barbaros Hayreddin and Torgut Reis, respectively. The two battleships saw very little service in the Italo-Turkish War and were mostly used to defend the Dardanelles from any Italian naval attacks. Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis saw heavy service during the Balkan Wars however, failing in two attempts to break the Greek naval blockade of the Dardanelles in December 1912 and January 1913, and providing artillery support to Ottoman ground forces in Thrace. On 8 August 1915, during World War I, Barbaros Hayreddin was torpedoed and sunk off the Dardanelles by the British submarine HMS E11, with heavy loss of life. Turgut Reis was largely inactive during World War I, in part due to her slow speed. By 1924, Turgut Reis was used as a school ship before eventually being scrapped in 1956–57.